1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to information processing and transmission systems and methods, and more particularly to, systems and methods for distributing or transmitting information, such as financial news, over a network from a remotely located client device (e.g., workstation or laptop) to one or more recipients or end users, wherein a first portion of the transmission uses a first communication protocol or standard and a second portion of the transmission uses a second communication protocol which is distinct from the first.
2. Background of the Invention
Certain market moving data, such as economic data, is released to news organizations in a secure lockup in which all communications with the outside world are prohibited until a designated “release time.” The market moving data is provided to news organizations in such a manner in order to ensure that each news agency receives the information simultaneously and has the opportunity to provide the information to their clients simultaneously.
For example, a governmental entity, such as the Department of Labor, will release important economic statistics (e.g., employment data) in a secure lockup to a selected group of news agencies. Typically, a lockup has a workspace where the journalists can work on their laptops or workstations. Most companies have permanent equipment stationed in a lockup which is connected by Wide Area Network (WAN) circuits to their company's network or data center or directly to their clients.
During a lockup or “embargo period,” all communications from the laptops and/or workstations located within the lockup are disabled by using, for example, an isolation switch (also referred to herein as a gang switch). After the time-sensitive market moving data is communicated to the journalists, the journalists are typically given 30 to 60 minutes (depending on the rules for that lockup environment) to digest and/or read the information and prepare a transmission (e.g. story, data, etc.) that is to be transmitted to their network and on to their subscribers at the “release time.”
In many lockups, the network communications are restored at exactly the “release time” by opening the isolation switch and these sites will be referred to herein as “no grace” sites or lockups. In other lockup environments, called “grace” sites, electronic communications are restored by opening the isolation switch prior to the “release time.” For example, in certain “grace” sites, the isolation switch is opened several minutes before the release time and the journalists are entrusted to refrain from transmitting their communications until exactly the “release time”, often given via a countdown.
In certain applications, the information transmitted by the journalist includes machine readable data or content which is adapted and configured to be read by a software application which extracts out the relevant financial information and executes a trade or a series of trades based on the data. (e.g., algorithmic trading). Algorithmic trading or automated trading, also known as algo trading, black-box trading, or robo trading, is the use of computer programs for entering trading orders with the computer algorithm deciding on certain aspects of the order such as the timing, price, or even the final quantity of the order. Algorithmic trading is widely used by hedge funds and similar market participants to make the decision to initiate orders based on information that is received electronically, before human traders are even aware of the information. The investment decision and implementation may be augmented at any stage with human support or may operate completely automatically.
Therefore, the speed at which the data is received by the market participants or algorithmic trading system is crucial and even a millisecond or several hundred microseconds difference in the transmission time can have a large financial impact on the trade. Therefore, the ability of a news organization to provide the news more quickly to its subscribers or customers than the competition can be a major advantage and highly lucrative.
At first, news organizations dramatically decreased the transmission time by automating much of the transmission process and through optimization of the network. More recently, in an attempt to surpass each other and further improve their transmission speed, news organizations have focused their attention on improving the software applications and routing used to create and distribute the data (e.g., increasing line bandwidth or reducing data packet size or removing the number of servers the data travels through). However, such changes have only led to incremental improvements in end-to-end transmission time.
Therefore, there is a need for improved systems and methods for communicating, distributing or transmitting information, such as financial news, from a remotely located device to one or more recipients, end users or subscribers that reduces the end-to-end time required to send the transmission.